


At The Gates

by theycallmeDernhelm (onyourleft084)



Series: and after all this time/i’m still into you [16]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Frenemies, Short scene, The Arrangement, character contrast, conflict centred, dialogue-based
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23198344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onyourleft084/pseuds/theycallmeDernhelm
Summary: The pressures of spying on the Antichrist and keeping a 6000 year old secret push Aziraphale toward the edge. Set during the Dowling Estate years.(Short piece, experimental)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: and after all this time/i’m still into you [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1515578
Comments: 4
Kudos: 66





	At The Gates

“So how did it go?”

Crowley leaned against the brick wall at the back gate of the Dowling estate, a spark from his fingertips igniting the end of his cigarette. The night sky was overcast, concealing the moon. He still had his sunglasses on— they made little difference to a demon’s eyesight whether it was night or day.

The sunglasses made it hard for Aziraphale to tell what Crowley was actually thinking. Sometimes he resented them, like right now. Although right now it felt like he resented a great deal about Crowley. He straightened his coat and said, “It went well. The usual.”

“They don’t suspect a thing?”

“You know these archangels. At best, they are largely indifferent to the progress we’re making.” A deep breath. “Which made me realise a few things, Crowley.”

“Like what?”

“Like that we’re probably wasting our time here.”

Crowley said nothing, nor did he turn to face Aziraphale directly. He just took a drag of his cigarette which, Aziraphale had come to know by now, was code for go on.

So Aziraphale went on. “I’ve been thinking about it all. I know we started off with the plan to watch over the Antichrist...make sure he grew up normal, and maybe, just maybe we’d stop the apocalypse, but now I’m starting to wonder if it will be all for naught.” Up in Heaven Aziraphale had been meek, overly polite, hesitant to speak. Now he was overriding the entire conversation with a firm voice. “My lot don’t suspect anything because they have hardly been paying attention to my actions. Now I know why. What we’re doing here— it’s inconsequential. It’s futile. And we are directly meddling with a grand design that we shouldn’t have been touching in the first place.” He wrung his hands. “And whether we succeed or we fail, they will find out we were involved from the start and they’ll punish us, and who’s to say they won’t try to start things up again, once we’re taken out of the way?”

“Okay, come on now,” said Crowley, pushing himself off the wall in exasperation. “You were perfectly fine with the plan at first, Aziraphale. What’s gotten into you now? What happened up there?”

“Nothing. Nothing happened!” he said, with renewed conviction as Crowley stalked up to him and stood facing Aziraphale with a tight-lipped expression and his hands on his hips, “I haven’t told anyone anything— yet.”

“‘Yet’?”

The look Aziraphale gave him was one of firm conviction, that of a man at the end of his rope.

“I want out, Crowley,” he said simply. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m marching out of those gates and I’m coming clean to Heaven.”

Crowley’s jaw dropped. The cigarette plopped out of his mouth, extinguished itself in the rough grass. “You wouldn’t.”

“I don’t have a choice,” snapped Aziraphale. “We’re doomed either way. Isn’t that the point of the Great Plan? We should never have gotten involved— I should never have let you get me involved,” he sniffed haughtily. “We are an angel and a demon, hereditary enemies, and I think it’s time we both started remembering that.”

He glared at Crowley, ready to push back if the demon got physical. But instead Crowley threw his head back and laughed, long and throaty and not like he thought Aziraphale was being funny at all.

“Oh, I knew you’d come out and say something like that,” Crowley sneered. “Cowardly little principality Aziraphale, chickening out at the slightest hint of doubt and running back to Mummy! You are _shit_ at being an angel, you know that?” He added, before Aziraphale could respond. “You pretend like you’re above doing the dirty work, above even talking to me, but you’re actually the most selfish, cowardly bastard I’ve ever met. Honestly, you were happy to let the Great Plan go accordingly until I pointed out that we’d lose everything on earth that we loved, literally, and because you couldn’t stand to sit around and watch it go down in flames, and oh, not to mention, fighting a war isn’t exactly in your comfort zone, now is it?!”

“And what about you?” snapped Aziraphale, in a way that startled Crowley and actually made him recoil. “You’re a lousy demon, Crowley. You only asked me to do this because you know, deep down, that _none of this has to happen._ Because you care! And wouldn’t it be simply embarrassing if your side found out?” he added sarcastically. “Wouldn’t it just damage your perfect reputation if they found out you’ve been slacking off all these years because you’ve gone soft? Because you’ve been nice?”

“Don’t you fucking dare- “

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Tears sprang to Aziraphale’s eyes. Not now! “What were we thinking, carrying on as we have for the past few thousand years?”

“‘Carrying on’?“ Crowley burst into ridiculing laughter. “Ohh, Angel, we haven’t ‘carried on’ for a loooooooong time. Is that what’s happened? You’ve turned into even more of a stuffy, stuck-up stickler-for-the-divine-rules while away from my demonic influence?” He rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. “We both know you don’t believe a word you’re saying. Come clean to Heaven, are you kidding me?”

“I might,” said Aziraphale indignantly. “I might do that and bring you down with me.”

Crowley shook his head spitefully. “You won’t. This means far too much to you.”

_I mean far too much to you._

A weary exhale escaped Aziraphale’s lungs. “Well maybe I’m just tired of pretending that we could actually make some kind of difference.” He actually seemed to sway on the spot, as if he might faint, and Crowley resented the instinct that rose up in him to try to steady the angel. “I- I have to go.”

* * *

Aziraphale stepped out into the street, into the wide maddening world, still smarting from their argument. All these years and he’d never quite gotten used to confrontation. He didn’t like being yelled at, and he certainly didn’t like yelling back, and he definitely disliked engaging in yelling with Crowley.

He grounded himself, shut his eyes and took a deep breath, allowing his supernatural senses to run rampant. For at least a hundred mile radius outside the Dowling Estate Aziraphale could absorb every sound, every taste and smell, drown himself in the whimsy and the chaos of a thousand human voices and the things that made up their lives. Each one, he was reminded, was so dense and complex and wonderful - there was no ineffable plan in the world that could possibly predict all the details. No standard blueprint for defining what each person would become. Wasn’t that the point he and Crowley were trying to prove with Warlock?

Aziraphale opened his eyes again, the sensory overload dying down. _I love this world,_ he thought resignedly. _Doesn’t it have so much potential? Wouldn’t it be unfair of us to cut it all off before it had a chance to get better?_

His mind slid back to every tragedy and triumph he’d seen the human race endure, the wicked things they’d wrought upon one another and the acts of astonishing generosity that shone through the cracks. Even if the forces of Heaven and Hell influenced them, ultimately, the world was shaped by their choices. With a sudden fierceness Aziraphale realised he would let himself discorporate before someone else, someone too far away from it to know better, took that choice away from them.

Again, fear clutched at his gut. _If you stick to the arrangement, someone will find out. Someone will find out and they’ll hurt both of you._

He couldn’t even stand to think of putting Crowley through that.

Aziraphale turned around, and found Crowley standing a few paces behind him. The demon opened his mouth to say something.

Aziraphale held up a hand abruptly. “Don’t.”

“You didn’t even know what I was going to- “

“You were going to apologise,” said Aziraphale. “And I would have forgiven you, because that’s what I always do. That’s how this works, right?”

“It doesn’t...have to, if you don’t want,” Crowley said, defeat in his voice.

“It’s all right.” Aziraphale sighed. “The deal’s still on.”

Crowley threw his hands up. “Then what was that all about, then?”

“I was scared,” Aziraphale said, wringing his hands. “I was certain I would be doing the right thing if I came clean. But all it took was— was a conversation with you and a few moments out here to realise that I can’t do that. I can’t sit by and watch the world be destroyed.”

Crowley nodded, “That was always my point.” He sauntered over. “Y-you know I can’t do this alone. So I said all that stuff because I was mad and I— I guess I was scared too. That you’d walk off and make a great mess of things.” He looked at Aziraphale. “And if it’s been hard sometimes— all the time— being around me, working with me, sticking to the Arrangement, I’m sorry too. But we’re too deep in it now. Nothing for it but to keep going- or lose everything.”

“Our sides know what we’re trying to do here,” Aziraphale said quietly. “But not why we’re doing it. And they don’t know about- about everything else. If they did find out, it would really be the end of everything.”

“Nobody’s gonna find out,” said Crowley dismissively. “So, why do you think we’re doing it, then?”

Aziraphale gave him a tight, helpless smile. He took a step closer to Crowley. “It’s like we said just earlier. I’m selfish,” he said, patting Crowley’s shoulder, “and you’re nice. And maybe the world benefits from that.”

Crowley scoffed. “‘Nice’ again. Cut it out, Angel.”

His nonchalant use of the old nickname reassured Aziraphale that everything was alright between them, after all.

“I apologise for what I said. You were right, I’d never- I’d never do what I said I’d do.” He looked up at Crowley with an embarrassed sort of smile. “And pardon me for losing faith so easily.”

Crowley regarded him oddly for a while, as if unsure of what to make of this. He managed a light stutter before muttering, “Apology accepted.” He looked up appraisingly, “Oh, so that’s how it feels.”

“Well.” Aziraphale brushed past him, back through the gates of the Estate. “Back into it, then?”

Crowley nodded and followed suit. “Back into it.”

They walked in silence up the path, the sharp edges of their argument already flattening and smoothing down. There was something weary about that, too, like either one was willing to go on forgiving the other, but unsure of how long they could keep that up for. How long it would be before they were tested in new ways, and their resolve would falter, and their friendship would be threatened as a result.

But Crowley and Aziraphale continued on and put that thought from their minds. That would be a bridge to cross when they came to it, and until they did, they’d carry on. Raising the boy. Meeting in secret. Holding on to the bond they’d forged over six thousand years, for as long as they could on their borrowed time, as every day brought them closer like the ticking of a clock toward the ending of the world.


End file.
